


Prelude: To a Fresh Start

by shimadagans



Series: The Butterfly Suite [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coming of Age, Everyone Needs A Hug, Felix's Dad is a competent parent, Multi, Music school AU, no war just gay awakenings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-12-01 20:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20889671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimadagans/pseuds/shimadagans
Summary: "Felix knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life the moment he heard his father play the violin for the first time."Incredibly self-indulgent AU in which everyone goes to music school. Felix-centric, also a coming of age story. Part one of a series.Written by a music school survivor, so based on a lot of my own experiences.





	Prelude: To a Fresh Start

Felix knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life the moment he heard his father play the violin for the first time.

Later, much later, he’d recognize the tune as the opening of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor. Even later still, at a plucky 10 years old, he’d give his own shaky first attempts at the first few bars, simultaneously pleased and frustrated with his progress and lack thereof. In his young mind, his father’s version remained untouchable, comfortably seated atop a pillar he couldn’t hope to topple.

Yet.

Of course, he practiced this specific piece in near-secret, not wanting his father to know how strongly Felix wanted to be like him, to play on those big, grand stages with a full orchestra backing him. Not that he would’ve noticed, really, what with Glenn being a prodigy.

Glenn Fraldarius, the prodigy. Heir to Rodrigue Fraldarius’ legacy, taught specially by his own father, the concertmaster of the capital’s orchestra himself. When he was younger, Felix bragged to anyone who’d listen about how great his brother was, how talented, how hard-working. “Did you know? Glenn plays in the big orchestra! He soloed with them last year! He even won the young artist’s performance prize—twice!” As he got older, he bragged less openly, but still had the urge to whisper to people sitting near him in the concert hall, about how that was _his_ brother up on the stage, earning their applause.

Felix, being four years his junior, tried to emulate him the best he could. In lessons with their father, he’d copy Glenn’s posture, his style of playing. They’d play duets under their father’s watchful eyes, breaking into grins once they got to the end of the movement.

“Glenn,” Rodrigue would smile and pat his shoulder, “Wonderful tone. Continue being mindful of your bow placement. And Felix,” his smile would fall just a bit, “Try not to play over your brother, hm? You are playing the second part, not the first.” But Felix would take the words as positive, somehow. Was it even possible to play over Glenn? Well, that wasn’t his intent but, if he could play _over_ him, did that mean he could keep playing _with_ him?

When Glenn got old enough, he started attending an arts school, and his skill grew exponentially. Felix, at age 11, could hardly believe how quickly his brother was leaving him behind, and doubled down into practice to try to catch up. He even asked his dad if he could start learning alto clef, if he could start learning viola, too. It came easier to him than he expected, and Glenn listened to him play, encouraged him, even found new duets the two of them could play together. They tore through the pages of the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia, and playing like that, in more control of what he played and how, left Felix breathless.

“Dad?” he asked over dinner one evening, the three of them seated around the table quietly while the local classical radio station played softly in the background, “Do you think when I’m older, I can go to Glenn’s school, too?”

Rodrigue looked up from his book, peered across the table at him, and graced him with a “Perhaps if you continue practicing, we’ll look into it.”

Glenn gave him a small smile from his other side, but Felix was undeterred. That evening, before bed, he drafted up a plan that would surely put him on track to meet Glenn at the top. His dad, of course, threw a wrench in things the very next week, pulling Felix out of his second 3-hour practice session of the day. He’d been in the middle of his viola etudes when his dad knocked and entered his room.

“Felix, I’d like you to meet someone.” He paused, noticing which instrument Felix was working with, “Ah, perfect. Come downstairs, please.”

And Felix begrudgingly followed his dad downstairs where there was a gaggle of other kids gathered near the front door, two boys and a girl. The tall, red-headed one said something that made the girl punch him in the arm, and the other blond boy hid a laugh behind his hand. All three of them had instrument cases with them, and they all sobered up when Felix and his dad came down the hall.

“I’m going to be coaching these young musicians in performance from now on,” his dad said, gesturing to the other three, “Everyone, this is Felix. Felix, this is Dimitri,” _bad haircut_, “Ingrid,” _blond girl, _“And Sylvain.” _tall._

“This is your other son?” the blond kid with the bad haircut asked, and Felix eyed him warily, choosing to say nothing.

“Yes, my son,” Rodrigue gently corrected, “Now, how would all four of you like to play in a quartet?”

That’s how Felix ended up getting roped into playing chamber music with the three weird kids his dad’s recruited from who knows where. It turned out that his dad is friends with all their parents. He asked Ingrid how long she’s been playing violin as he handed out photocopied sheet music for the first movement of Beethoven’s second string quartet. He told Dimitri how much he’s grown since he last saw him. Dimitri hid his flushed face behind his violin and Sylvain smirked at him, dropping his endpin rest on the floor.

Felix sat in between him and Ingrid and tried to keep up. A glance at the music his dad put on the stand in front of him told him that this shouldn’t be too difficult for him; he had heard this one a hundred times already, and the viola part is even easier than the other parts, in his mind. Dimitri and Ingrid seemed to be studying their parts, too, but Felix was irked to notice Sylvain barely paid attention while Rodrigue gave them some background on the piece. Instead, he seemed content to make faces at Dimitri (who decidedly avoided his eye contact) when Rodrigue’s back was turned. Felix shot him a scowl right before they started tuning, but his tension eased when they started playing.

They were decent, surprisingly, though his dad wouldn’t have offered to teach them if they weren’t somewhat good. There were a few stumbles, of course—they were mostly sight-reading, after all--but Rodrigue told them to keep going until they get to the end. As soon as they finished, Dimitri apologized profusely for missing that one F natural and “ruining the effect of the chord” or whatever, but Felix was happy to just bask in the remnants of sound for now. His dad went over to show Dimitri something in the score, and his moment was interrupted when Sylvain leaned closer to him, and Felix leaned away, eyebrows raised.

“So, are you gonna apply to the big fancy art school, too?” he asked, leaning back into his own space.

“Yes,” Felix replied without hesitation, “I’m going to the same school Glenn goes to.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Sylvain grinned, but then looked confused, tapping his fingers against the body of his instrument, “Wait, I thought Glenn said you played violin too…”

“You’re friends with Glenn?” Felix asked, quickly, then, “Uh, I do play it, I just wanted to play viola too.”

“Not friends, no,” the other boy looked at him quizzically, “He was just at my orientation for the school, they had some current students show the new ones around a little. Maybe I’ll do the same for you once you get there.” He grinned again, and then Rodrigue got their attention again. They focused on some of the more difficult to parse measures, and Rodrigue beamed at them. Felix, unused to so much of his father’s praise being on him, relished in it.

“Ask your parents if it’s alright to meet weekly, and tell them to call me later,” he said at the end, “Perhaps we can find performance opportunities for you four, as well.”

Felix buzzed with the excitement of playing in front of someone except his family, and the following weekly coaching sessions became less and less of a chore as time went on. Sometimes, he even looked forward to seeing the other three. They got “thick as thieves” as Rodrigue says, sometimes going over to each others’ houses just to hang out, not even to practice.

It was a bit of a new concept to Felix, but even Ingrid, who he swore practiced almost as much as he did, told him, often, that taking breaks was good, even healthy. “You’re never going to get to the top if you don’t let yourself breath,” she’d say, frowning. But then, Sylvain would say something goofy and they’d all be laughing, even prim and proper Dimitri.

The quartet started to get small gigs playing at receptions, even some weddings, and Glenn came to see all the performances he could, talking everyone’s ears off about how his little brother was going to make it big someday. Felix groused about it aloud, red around the ears, but he smiled at the praise regardless.

A few years passed, filled with practice, an occasional performance, and more practice. Felix played whatever he could, whenever, even delving into some more experimental music, developing a love for music beyond just trying to be like his brother. Both the Fraldarius brothers, under the tutelage of their father, started preparing for auditions; Felix, for the arts high school, and Glenn, for university. They listened to each other play, critiquing and encouraging. Felix takes his audition first, and though his hands shook, Glenn talked him through the nerves gently.

_“Does it always feel like this? Auditioning?”_

_“Not always. Just treat it like a performance. You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to hear you play.”_

And so, Felix skillfully carved his way through the Hummel Fantasy, instrument leaving the audition room ringing. He heard the judges murmur his surname among themselves as he left the room, but he was caught by Glenn and his father on the way to the parking lot, one of each of their hands on his shoulders. The weight of his brother’s legacy lifts, just a little.

He got in, of course, which earned him his choice of takeout when they received the news a month later, and it only served to spur him into even more strenuous practice.

_I’ll make it so people look at me and Glenn as equals. I’m not just Glenn’s little brother anymore._

Glenn got into his university of choice, too, of course. The Seiros School of Music, on the campus of Garreg Mach University. Rodrigue seemed perplexed by the choice (“The Fhirdiad Academy is just an hour away, are you sure?”) but Glenn told Felix, quietly, “I want to see more of the world. I hear Garreg Mach has students from all over the world, and a great exchange program. I could learn so much there.”

Felix didn’t tell him he’d miss him out loud, but the look on his face must’ve said it all, because Glenn smiled at him and told him not to worry, that he’d be back soon. When he packed for the university in the early fall, he repeated as much to both Felix and Rodrigue, then double, no, triple-checked he had everything he needed for dorm life and left.

The house was quieter with one less musician in it, though Felix had little time to get used to it; he started his new year within the month, and quartet rehearsal became more intense as the four of them started to seek out more opportunities. Both Sylvain and Ingrid had also gotten into the arts school, while Dimitri remained home-schooled. He had “duties”, whatever that meant, and Felix nearly lost it when Ingrid let it slip that they had been playing with a prominent politician’s son for years. He then nearly lost it _again_, for a completely different reason, when Sylvain told him a story about Dimitri snapping a bow completely in half without meaning to.

True to his word, Sylvain took it upon himself to show Felix around when the school year started, though his companionship was always pockmarked by ridiculous attempts at flattery towards any vaguely good-looking female students. By the third month or so, it had actually started to grate on his nerves. When he expressed as much to Ingrid, she had just shrugged and told him to tell Sylvain about it. So he tried.

“Why do you do that?” Felix asked, scowling as Sylvain tried to throw an arm around his shoulders. He had been trying to open his locker before Sylvain had sauntered over. Sylvain had just been gabbing with some girl from the visual arts classes and Felix had been trying to tune it out.

“Do what?” the taller one asked, scooting over just enough for Felix to open the door and grab his books.

“Flirt. With all of the girls.” Felix ground out, unsure of why it even bothered him so much, “Could you not?”

Sylvain turned to smirk at him, now that the object of his previous affections was out of sight, “Oh, come on, dude, I’m just being nice. What, would you rather I flirt with you instead?”

When Felix spluttered and couldn’t get out a truly coherent response, he’d just laughed and told him he was joking, but Felix couldn’t stop wondering why it was that Sylvain’s….”being nice” bothered him. Later that night, he shoved that weird, prickly feeling towards the back of his brain and chalked it up to new school weirdness.

But he kept feeling it. Not all the time, just anytime Sylvain threw flirtatious words at girls like it was going to win him a prize. Felix didn’t understand it in the slightest; why spend so much time doing things like that when you could be practicing? Sometimes, though, he’d feel something different, something almost worse, whenever Sylvain smiled at him, or asked his opinion of something, or asked him to play something with him, or…

Well. He felt that other feeling a lot. But that was just because Sylvain was his closest friend, right?

If Glenn hadn’t been in school, he’d had asked him for advice. This seemed silly, though, to bother Glenn with a text or a call when he was surely doing big things in school. So, with nobody else to talk to, he bottled it up. It started bothering him enough that his dad noticed something was off during a lesson, to his embarrassment.

“Is something going on in school?” he’d asked, when Felix had tripped through a tough measure for the third time that day.

“No. Just tired,” he’d grunted, about to start playing again, but Rodrigue shook his head.

“Felix, I know we’ve both been busy, but you can tell me anything,” he’d said, and Felix, with nobody else around to help, at age 14, had said “Sylvain is always flirting with girls and it makes me…mad, I think?”

Rodrigue had dropped all pretenses of keeping the lesson going after that, sitting down with Felix over tea to just…talk. It was weird, but refreshing, to just talk to his dad without their instruments between them. He told him about classes, about how ensemble class was going, about the test he had coming up, about Sylvain, and his father had asked him, “Felix, do you think that you might be upset that Sylvain is always talking to girls because _you_ want to talk to him?”

“Well, yeah,” Felix had snorted, then sipped his tea, “He’s my best friend, I like talking to him.”

Rodrigue had paused to pour himself more, then asked, “Would you say that you like spending time with him?”

Felix has narrowed his eyes at his dad, “Where are you going with this?”

“I don’t want to make any assumptions, Felix, but,” his dad eyed him over his teacup, “Perhaps you’re angry with him because you want him to see you like he sees those girls.”

Felix almost spat out his tea, but it was his favorite, spiced, so he centered himself and thought about it. He thought about when Sylvain laughed, and how his eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled, and how his hair looked soft, and that one mole on his neck--

_Oh._

“You look deep in thought. I just want you to know,” Rodrigue (thankfully) interrupted his train of thought, reaching over the table to rest his hand on Felix’s, “That I will support you no matter what. Just don’t let…things distract you from what you want to do.”

After their talk, Felix could focus better. He breathed easier, even when Sylvain was late to class after “escorting a girl to her class”, even when Ingrid gave him a knowing look over Sylvain’s shoulder at their lunch table. His dad came home one day with a couple books and Felix poured over them in private, learning words to describe how he felt. He texted Glenn about it eventually, at his father’s prodding, and Glenn called him and told him all about school, and about how the different people there. He sent him links to some of the pieces he was playing now, and Felix leaned back in his desk chair and absorbed it all like a sponge. Felix returned to his practice routine, actually talked to people in his other classes, and somehow managed to miss the looks Sylvain would send his way.

Glenn came home for the winter holiday a few weeks before Felix finished his own semester, and quickly the two of them fell into their old banter. Glenn had improved so much already, and Felix listened intently, keen on gleaning whatever he could from his brother’s knowledge. When Felix’s school let out, Dimitri, Ingrid, and Sylvain came over for a little impromptu party to celebrate and exchange holiday gifts. Dimitri had knit each of them a striped hat, Ingrid made cupcakes, and Sylvain handed each of them a cheery mug with a sloth on it, hot cocoa mix and candy tucked inside. Felix handed each of them in turn a clip for their music stands, “For your pencils or whatever.”

Glenn even took a break from “resting” to listen to their quartet rehearsal. He gave Ingrid and Dimitri some pointers and Felix snorted at their starry-eyed looks. Sylvain patted his arm with his hand and grinned too, unaware of how warm Felix’s arm stayed afterwards. Before the quartet dispersed for the holiday, Felix stopped Sylvain in the foyer and handed him a wrapped gift, hoping the dim late-afternoon lighting would keep the heat on his face unseen.

“Don’t open this until you get home, okay?” he said, refusing to look at Sylvain.

Sylvain had waggled his eyebrows at him and gotten punched in the arm for it, but he agreed all the same, “Alright, Fe, I promise.”

He got a texted selfie a few hours later, when Sylvain got dropped off at home by Mr. Galatea, of Sylvain giving the camera a peace sign, wrapped in a cozy teal scarf that had reminded Felix of him. The caption read: “thanks fe <3” and Felix wanted to both punch himself and Sylvain.

Glenn only stayed for three of his four weeks of break, insisting on returning to campus early to prepare for the first chair test of the season (“I don’t want to give up concertmaster so easily!”) and Rodrigue relented, making sure he double and triple-checked for everything once again, “Be careful on the roads, there’s ice.” Glenn hugged his father and his brother one last time, then headed out around noon.

Felix prepared to settle into the peace of winter break for the next week and a half, but his whole world shattered just a few hours later.

Rodrigue took the phone call in the dining room, just down the hall from where Felix sat watching X-Files in the living room and he only heard “An accident? Oh, no. Please, no.” Before his blood ran cold.

An accident. Someone driving under the influence. The weather. Holiday Travelers. So many variables, condensed down into one tragedy. The peace of winter break blurred into the numbness of disbelief. Ingrid showed up at his door in tears, throwing herself at him and he tried to comfort her as best he could but he had no idea what he was doing. He could barely deal with his own emotions, let alone hers.

It didn’t really hit him until Rodrigue knocked on his door a few days later. He held an instrument case in his hands, and Felix didn’t need to see the ID tag to know whose it was.

“It’s…the only thing that survived the crash,” his dad started, quieter than Felix ever remembered him being, “I think…he would’ve wanted you to have it.”

“I don’t want it,” he’d said, surprisingly himself with the harshness of his words. It felt good, though, to provoke a reaction out of his father, so he kept going, finally feeling something, _anger_, after days of not feeling at all, “I’m not Glenn, and I’m never going to be him. He’s _gone,”_ he turned back around to keep practicing, “And he’s not coming back.”

Of course, he grieved in his own way. He went back to old sheet music he hadn’t seen in years, playing those second violin parts he had so brusquely swept through before with something like kindness. Nobody else saw kindness from Felix at school, though. He barely spoke, and when he had to, he was short, cold, even. Only Sylvain and Ingrid seemed to be able to tolerate it, though Sylvain didn’t try to throw an arm around him anymore, and Ingrid’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.

Felix didn’t go to the funeral, though Dimitri came by the house afterwards under the premise of “checking in” and Felix almost punched him.

“Don’t you _dare_ come by here trying to dredge up some semblance of sympathy from me,” he’d all but snarled at him, “You don’t understand, _none_ of you could possibly understand—” and Dimitri had hugged him, almost bruised his ribs until he relented slightly and said, in the smallest voice, “It’s not ok, Felix, and it doesn’t have to be.”

He’d cried, then, let himself be hugged, then, after a few minutes, he shoved Dimitri away and made him swear never to speak of it again.

Glenn’s violin case sat, unopened, in Felix’s closet. He barely even touched his own, focusing solely on viola.

He’d gotten into a new sense of normalcy during the next months, full of barbed words when his world shattered _again_.

“I’m moving away,” Sylvain said, after quartet practice one day, sitting on Felix’s porch swing in the late spring afternoon. He swatted at a bug before Felix could muster the understanding to respond, “You’re _what?”_

“I’m moving away,” he said it slower, glancing over at Felix, gauging his reaction, “My mom got a better job a few hours away, and its too far to commute to the arts school. Wanted you to be the first to know.” He’d looked away then, bashful, but Felix was too busy gathering storm clouds to notice.

“Fine,” he said, standing abruptly from his side of the swing, jostling Sylvain from his relaxed seat, “Just. Fine.” Felix turned and stormed back inside his house, up the stairs and into his room. Logically, he knew he was being childish, but after all that had happened, he couldn’t find it in himself to apologize. Plus, Sylvain didn’t chase him, like boys did in all those movies that his dad secretly loved. He didn’t even talk to Felix at all during the last week of school, which was _fine_ because Felix didn’t talk to him either. Ingrid fussed over both of them, but neither would budge. Other students noticed and whispered until Felix glared daggers at them.

Felix threw himself into solo practice again and didn’t blink when his dad informed him that they wouldn’t be having quartet rehearsal anymore. He nearly threw his phone across his room when Sylvain texted him one last goodbye and resolved to firmly lock his feelings into the furthest corner of his mind. He didn’t hear from him again, and apparently neither did Ingrid nor Dimitri if their sad eyes were anything to go by.

The next few years were near torture, grueling and uninteresting. Felix went to school, played listlessly in his ensemble classes, and rushed home to practice on his own. On rare occasions, Ingrid or Dimitri would stop by (probably by his father’s insistence) and coax him into duets, but Felix’s heart wasn’t in it. Ingrid always looked like she was on the verge of crying whenever she saw the family pictures in the hall, and Dimitri looked like he was always restraining himself. Felix didn’t want or need their pity, he told himself. He practiced Paganini and tried not to bristle when his dad told him he was doing well. He tried to sympathize with his father, but he kept fixing him with these wistful glances and telling Felix to keep practicing, so he did.

When his senior year rolled around, Felix was already prepared for college auditions. He applied to several schools, but only truly had eyes for Garreg Mach. He needed to see, with his own eyes, what had really drawn his brother so far away from home, what led him to leave for this damned school so early. A few months before graduation, he got an invitation to audition that his dad nearly squeals over. When his audition day rolled around, he stood in the waiting room, already warmed up, with his father.

Rodrigue’s smile actually reached his eyes when he said, “No matter what happens, I’m proud of you.”

Felix restrained himself from scoffing and had simply nodded, “Thanks.”

A girl with long gold hair came up to them and smiled, “Fraldarius, right? It’s your turn.”

She led him down the hallway and let him into a little room where three people sat behind two folding table jammed together. A lady with mint green hair smiled kindly at him, a man with his blonde hair in a ponytail nodded at him, unsmiling, and the last, a man with darker green hair called to him, “Felix Fraldarius?”

Felix nodded and walked up to the stand in the middle of the room, setting his music down. Only a precaution, though, he’d memorized these pieces months ago. Filled with dread at the idea that they’d recognized his surname and were going to make some comment about Glenn, he replied, “Yes, that’s me.”

“Excellent. What will you be playing for us today, Mr. Fraldarius?” asked the woman, still smiling serenely.

“I’ll be playing the Glasonov Elegy first, then the Vaughn-Williams Christmas Dance,” he said, already tightening his bow, getting ready to tune.

“Whenever you’re ready,” said the green-haired man again. Felix tried to ignore the scrutinizing gaze of the blonde man and breathed deeply.

_.”Just treat it like a performance. You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want to hear you play.”_

So he plays, and he isn’t the least bit fazed when the judges take notes, nor when he starts his second piece, nor when they ask him for some scales. He feels…fine. When he gets back to his dad, he gives him an actual hug, and they go out for Thai somewhere nearby after Rodrigue struggles to look up directions on his phone.

He’s not excited when he gets his acceptance letter in the mail months later, he’s not excited when Ingrid shows him her own letter over video call, and he’s not excited when he finds out Dimitri got one too. He’s pleased with himself, and quietly proud of his friends, but not excited. He does finally feel excited when he gets himself all moved in the week before school starts, showing up to orientation for the prestigious Seiros School of Music. He sees Mercedes, who he met during his audition, a shorter ginger girl nearly attached to her hip. Mercie, bless her, waves him over and introduces “Annie--ooh, sorry--Annette,” and she says how happy she is that he chose here, as if there was anywhere else he wanted to go. “I’m helping out with orientation, but Annie is also a new student. We’ve been friends since—” “Middle school! We were in choir together,” Annie’s all smiles, “Do you know anyone here, Felix?” And Ingrid and Dimitri come into the auditorium, instrument cases on their backs.

“Those two blondes over there,” he nods to them and they make their way over too, smiling.

It feels good to be here, he thinks, sitting in this hall he’s only seen shaky cell phone video of, a place where Glenn performed and a place where, hopefully, he’ll get to play, too. He feels more whole than he has in a while, grateful that he somehow hasn’t yet pushed Dimitri and Ingrid away. They seem excited, too, but Felix doesn’t have long to bask in the feeling.

“Attention everyone!” calls the green-haired man from his audition, “Good morning! How wonderful to see so many new faces here!” And there are quite a few people sitting here, Felix notes, even now that all of the returning students have moved up to the stage, behind the speaker, “I am Professor Seteth Cichol, and I am head of theory and aural skills here. This,” he gestures to the green-haired woman beside him, “Is the Dean of the Seiros School of Music.”

“Hello, everyone,” she says, projecting easily through the auditorium, “My name is Rhea Seiros, and my mother started this school with the hope that people from all over the world could come together in one place with one goal in mind: to make wonderful music. My hope is that everyone here shares that goal, and that we can continue to strive, together, towards community through the art of music. The faculty and I want to welcome you into our family, so that…”

Felix would be loathe to admit it, but he starts tuning the dean out because he catches a glimpse of a bright teal cello case with a sloth sticker on it, leaned against the stage’s edge. He feels his stomach drop and he knows Ingrid can tell because she puts her hand on his arm and that grounds him a bit. It’s cool, more than one person in the world can have a case that obnoxious. He tunes back in just as the dean introduces the rest of the faculty.

Some well-known opera singer leads the vocal department, a well-published scholar leads winds and composition, and some guy with big dad energy makes an awful pun when he announces he leads the brass department. A former touring musician with sharp style and sharper eyes is the head of piano and keyboard, and a tough-looking blonde lady that can’t seem to give the other lady her personal space is head of percussion.

Felix notes that the other man from his audition isn’t here, and, as if she knows what he’s thinking, the dean says, “Fear not, string players, we haven’t forgotten you. Our former head of strings is on sabbatical, but we are very excited to both introduce a new professor _and _a new program they will lead!” A new person with blue-ish hair appears at Rhea’s side and she shakes their hand before introducing them, “This is Byleth Eisner, your new head of strings _and _world musical styles!”

The new professor simply waves and smiles, though it’s so small Felix can barely make it out.

“Alright,” Professor Cichol calls out after the applause has died down, “We are going to separate you into your various instrument groups, but first, we wanted to give you a taste of what our newest professor has in store for you. They have been working with a group of returning students to showcase something just for you. Enjoy.”

As he speaks, a few of the students behind him grab their instruments from behind the sound shelves and start sitting behind him, a string quartet from the looks of it. He leans back a bit in his seat, ready to “enjoy” when he sees red hair and a cello.

Felix’s stomach drops straight to the floor.

_There’s no way. No fucking way._

Ingrid and Dimitri must think similarly, because he hears them gasp.

Sylvain Jose _goddamn_ Gautier is up there, tuning his cello and smiling at the other people in his group like he hadn’t disappeared from their collective lives a few years ago. They start playing and, yes, there’s no mistaking it now. Sylvain has always moved so naturally while playing, something Felix had to ingrain into himself through hours of watching himself play in the mirror. They’re playing a Piazolla quartet, but he can’t pay that much attention to the actual sound when his thoughts are racing so fast.

“Do you need to leave?” Ingrid asks, near his ear, and he just shakes his head and stares, unabashed, at Sylvain. Seeing him again is doing funny things to that drawer he locked all his feelings in so long ago but he can’t stop _staring_.

Luckily, everyone else is engrossed in the music, so he gets away with it until the end of the piece, when the players stand to take a little bow. Sylvain’s grinning—when did his hair get that long, _goddess_—and looks out over the crowd and—

He sees Felix. He looks right at him.

The smile drops for a fraction of a second, and he sees a few different emotions flicker across Sylvain’s face--shock, anger, sadness, something else?--before he nails the smile back in place, turning back to his quartet like he hasn’t just shaken up Felix’s whole life like a hornet’s nest.

“Oh, fuck,” he whispers, suddenly hoarse.

It’s going to be a long semester.

**Author's Note:**

> Pieces referenced:  
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, 1st movement  
Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia for Violin and Viola  
Beethoven String Quartet No. 2 Op. 18, 1st movement  
Hummel Potpourri mit Fantasie  
Glasonov Elegie for Viola and Piano Op. 44  
Vaughn-Williams Suite for Viola and Orchestra, Suite I, Movement III: Christmas Dance  
Piazzolla Four for Tango
> 
> I wrote this in one sitting starting at like. midnight so please be kind


End file.
